More women running ranches, farms today

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 4, 1999

FALLON, Nev. - Marie Sherman never considered selling off the ranch and moving to town when her husband died 15 years ago.

"I'm not a town person. I always liked to be outdoors, around animals. And with all the hollerin' and cussin' I do, they'd probably run me out of town," she said with a big smile.

Sherman's leathery tan attests to the 365 days a year she rises at 5 a.m. to feed 25 sheep and 400 head of cattle - just like her grandparents did when they arrived by covered wagon from Iowa at the turn of the century.

Sherman is among a growing number of women in Nevada and across the country who are running their own ranches and farms, according to the 1997 agricultural census recently released by the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Today, one out of seven Nevada farms is operated by a woman - 14.4 percent in the state. That's up from 11 percent in 1987 and 8.2 percent in 1982, well above the 1997 national average of 8.6 percent.

Keeping the farm&lt;

It used to be that most women would give up the farm when faced with divorce or loss of a husband. Not anymore.

"The thought of moving to town is just not that inviting," said Carole Hanks, who has been the principal operator of a Nye County ranch since her husband came down with multiple sclerosis years ago.

"My neighbor to the north is a divorcee running her place alone. A little farther north, there's a little gal whose husband died," Hanks said.

"I told my husband years ago the thought of a 9-to-5 job almost makes me ill to my stomach."

There are a variety of other reasons that have led to more women in farming, specialists say.

For one, more women are working in general and previous obstacles to women in business, such as obtaining credit, are less of a problem. Also, farming is a tough business - lower farm income has forced many male farmers and ranchers to take off-farm jobs while female spouses of family members run the farm. Also, farming is becoming increasingly dependent on technology and is requiring different skills.

"I think across the board women are becoming more stand-alone, if you will," said Doug Busselman, executive vice president of the Nevada Farm Bureau.

"I've noticed that if there is a divorce or death, women are maintaining the operation and not necessarily saying, "I need to sell the ranch.""

New look at an old tradition&lt;

The trend is nothing new for Hanks' mother, Lina Sharp, a longtime rancher in White Pine County where her family settled in eastern Nevada's Railroad Valley in the 1870s.

"We had nothing but five girls on the ranch," she said.

"We helped with the branding, with the roundups. The women out here really work with the guys. There's no question about not doing it. It's a family operation."

Paul Iverson, director of the Nevada Department of Agriculture, said women traditionally have been important partners on Nevada farms but they may not have signed on the dotted line as the principal operator in the past.

"Matriarchs in these families have always played a key role in keeping these families together," Iverson said.

"They have always been there. They just haven't gotten the recognition.

"I think it is the whole nature of our society now that women have those opportunities. All these traditions we grew up with I think it takes a little bit longer" to change in rural areas, Iverson said.

Sonya Johnson, who raises cattle on a 40-acre ranch south of Fallon that her family started in the 1870s, says there are a lot of smaller farms in the area run by women. The latest statistics might be the result of women actually signing the paperwork.

"I remember years ago a loan officer said that was the only way I could get a loan was I had to put my stepdad on the loan," she said.

"Our way of life here in America is generally going that way. In some cases, the male partner is working off the farm and the female assuming responsibility for the farm," said Martin Owens, the USDA's Nevada state statistician.

Nevada lifestyle&lt;

Nevada may be higher on the list due to some lifestyle differences, Owens said. Many Midwest states are near the bottom, around 5 percent.

Sherman, who was born in 1931 on the ranch about 60 miles east of Reno, said things have changed since she was young.

"When I was a girl, most mothers and dads didn't let the girls work on the farm. They just thought it wasn't a girl's place," she said, putting milk on the stove to warm for the lambs.

"My dad, he encouraged us. He told us to get out there," In 1973, he deeded her the ranch. Her husband, who worked primarily as a logger and miner, died in 1985.

She's been running the farm all along. The big smile rarely leaves her face, but her toughness shines through when she stops to yell at one of her dogs: "Tuffy!"

In recent years, she's hired a farm hand to help with the livestock and an alfalfa crop on her 240 acres about a mile from Fallon Naval Air Station.

"I used to do it by myself," she said, "but I'm getting older and I can't move as fast as I used to." &lt;